There has been quite a lot going on around Rotterdam's Arts and Culture Council recently. For instance, based on a ramshackle research to say the least, the councillor rather bluntly decided to abolish the independent advisory body. It is too self-serving for his officials. His decision was discussed at length at a City Council meeting in late June.
Redundant debate
After six hours of debate, the D66 councillor for culture announced that the day before he had already put his final signature on his own decision. It was therefore irreversible, the city council debate had been for nothing. Pretty laconic. But he also could not have reported it earlier according to the rules of procedure. Besides, the City Council has nothing to say about incidental principal relations within a municipal department. Constables are civil servants. So you have power and you can use it, or you can share it on your own initiative, but this D66 man chose the former.
After another committee meeting had passed, there was an inserted discussion yesterday, July 7, by an unfortunately not majority disaffected city council. A dozen motions were tabled. Seven of them were aimed at changing the councillor's mind. All those motions were eventually voted down. Only the motions calling for "thinking about a form of independent advice on culture" were accepted by the council. So Rotterdam, a city in which the usually dualistic D'66 lives in an uneasy embrace with the populists of Leefbaar, no longer has an independent Arts and Culture Council.
Watch the last debate
It voted, ironically, in favour of a motion calling for a triangular relationship between municipality, arts sector and consultancy. Typical of a motion you cannot oppose, but which also has no consequences. So the uneasy triangle can continue to exist between the municipal Cultural Affairs Department, which likes to chart its own course, a sector that, after years of turmoil, mainly wants certainty, and a municipal council that prefers to see cultural policy outsourced. In between floats an alderman who chooses his own civil service without any threat to his position. That department - according to very reliable sources - has been troubled for years by the independent advice of the RRKC.
The Utrecht Model?
Where to go from here? The Maasstad roughly has a choice between following the Utrecht model, or the Amsterdam model. However, the latter involves an independent advisory board, which is not a contractor of the cultural affairs department, so it will not be it.
The Utrecht Model, which has even been written with capital letters since the beginning of this century, cannot be simply transferred to Rotterdam for another reason. Indeed, in Utrecht, it was the often small-scale cultural institutions themselves that chose not to go for the big money of a big city company, but to spread the money over many small ones. The big institutions embraced this formula, and adjusted their ambitions. This was possible, because of Utrecht's small scale. The makers know each other, the lines are short, and the civil service changes with some regularity. Successive top officials subordinate their own ambitions to the 'Model'. The latter has not happened in Rotterdam in recent decades.
Independence is an illusion
In Rotterdam, cooperation does not come naturally. There have been so many cutbacks and pressurised mergers in recent years that institutions are either mainly dealing with the problems internally or peering suspiciously at each other through the blinds. This is an ideal breeding ground for a bold top official to push through her grand vision. Undesirable, of course, because criticism from the field will never reach the civil service openly, afraid as everyone is of their own scruples.
What Rotterdam needs? The city's problems are too big and diverse to be solved on an adhoc basis by a weak alderman. And exactly that is what his officials want. The question is whether they then have an eye for the diversity of challenge that culture poses in the Maas city. A strong and fully independent Council for Rotterdam Arts and Culture, with regularly rotating members, is the only possibility, but Leefbaar will never allow that, and culture party D66 will not sacrifice its alderman.
So that's quite a shame.
RRKC response: "RRKC satisfied that independent advice is secured“
The RRKC is disappointed that the city council did not put a stop to its dissolution on 1 January 2023. However, the RRKC is satisfied that, with adopted motions, independent, solicited and unsolicited advice remains guaranteed in Rotterdam. It is also right to examine the role of the alderman and the civil service.
With mixed feelings, chairman Carlos Gonçalves looks back on the city council's debate on the college's dissolution of the RRKC. The city council had earlier strongly criticised Alderman Kasmi's dissolution decision. "Opposition and coalition sounded unison in committee last week in their concern over the course of events and the future of independent consultancy. In the municipal council debate, little of that remained."
There was insufficient support in the city council for motions calling for the suspension of the dissolution, or for a new investigation into how to do things better. However, the council did set limits on the alternative that alderman Kasmi should put forward for independent unsolicited and solicited advice on arts and culture. He must also conduct further research into forms of advice in other cities and how his officials advise and deal with advice. Kasmi must also discuss his alternative with the cultural sector to the city council. These are improvements on the alderman's original plan
It is gratifying that the city council is sticking to independent advice, something the RRKC has guaranteed since 2005. And will continue to do so until 2023. The RRKC follows its advisory agenda and publishes two opinions in the autumn: 'Cultural infrastructure and urban development', and 'Digital strategies of Rotterdam cultural organisations'.
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